


Yubileynaya

by Leyenn



Series: Aqua Vitae [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:06:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is reunited with an old flame. Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yubileynaya

**Author's Note:**

> For sg_rarepairings - _Sam/Svetlana, vodka_.

_She_ steps through the Atlantis gate with seven other new recruits, at ten thirty local time on the dot. Sam watches the arrival party from the balcony of her office and doesn't quite manage to resist a quick wave as a gaze as piercing as ever sweeps up and catches her own. They exchange a smile; she hopes no one else notices that.

She doesn't get off duty until even later than usual, as if the city is conspiring against her for some reason (as if it ever needs to have a reason). It has some help from McKay and his latest maverick theory about the latest piece of Ancient technology they've unearthed, but she finally draws the line at Sheppard wanting to go through _reports_. That's far too much like a parallel universe for her comfort, so she steers him into McKay's lab with only a sliver of guilt and leaves him to turning things on and off while she makes her escape.

It's late enough when she reaches her quarters that she doesn't expect company. The sound of the door takes her by surprise as she's dragging a t-shirt over her head.

"Come in." She looks up and it's Svetlana. She smiles for the second time. "Hi."

"Is this a bad time?" She's asking, but walking in anyway, carrying a box that looks suspiciously like contraband. Sam's smile widens.

"Does it really matter?"

"It is polite to ask," Svetlana says, matching her smile for smile. "It is late. I wasn't sure you would still be awake."

Sam snorts. "You're kidding, right? I only just got in." In a crisp new Atlantis uniform, not hidden under bulky Siberian winter gear like the last time they saw each other, her hair loose like Sam's first memories of her, Svetlana looks softer and has the same small, slender figure she remembers; the same figure that made her feel over-tall and gawky the very first time and still does even now. She suddenly feels apologetic and has no idea what to say. "Um. Well, I guess - welcome to Atlantis."

Svetlana's smile widens, amusement clear in it. "Thank you, Colonel."

She rubs her neck in embarrassment. "I, uh, I meant to try and find you at lunch, but it gets all kinds of crazy around here at times..."

"So I hear." The other thing that hasn't changed is Svetlana's dry humor. Sam chuckles, finds herself relaxing - and finds herself remembering, too, how easily this woman can make her do that.

"I'll bet you've read everything there is to read about Atlantis, right?"

"Perhaps." Svetlana holds up the box in her hands and presents it like a gift. "Do you know what day it was yesterday, Colonel Carter?"

"Your birthday?" She's got no idea, she's just guessing randomly. Even if it was easy to track Earth calendars out here - and it would be more than one, which is one of the reasons why they don't, really, much - she's always been hopeless with dates. Svetlana smiles like she knows that, like she knows all about Samantha Carter as much as she knows about Atlantis, and all those random unsent letters, all those infrequent emails flit across Sam's mind.

"Yesterday was thirteen years since the first day we met." Svetlana smiles. That's softer now, too. "Or rather, the first night." She presses the box into Sam's hands. It's heavy. "_Pozdravlia s iubileem_."  
The vodka turns out to be the most expensive brand she's ever seen, better than even the best wine she's ever had, and she suspects the two glasses that emerge from the box aren't exactly cheap, either. It strokes her throat with smooth heat as it goes down, the same heat that rises in her cheeks and spreads over her skin when Svetlana finally leans close.

The first new kiss reminds her, like everything else about this woman, of being young and reckless and stupid, and of enjoying the hell out of it. Svetlana's lips are softer than her voice and taste sharply of jubilee vodka, and they're definitely warmer than just the memory that's kept her haunted all these years.

She's breathing roughly when they break away from each other. "Thirteen years," she murmurs. She was so ridiculously young then, full of ambition, and now she's here, they're both here, in another galaxy, and that time back then seems so unreal. "Really?"

"An unlucky number," Svetlana says, and Sam laughs.

"Not for me."

"No?"

"No." She leans forward and takes Svetlana's face purposefully in her hands. She has callouses now that fit around a P-90, scars that that younger self could never have imagined, but Svetlana doesn't flinch away: there's just that piercing gaze, still, locked to hers, and her own voice is husky when she speaks with more than alcohol. "No, definitely not unlucky."

  


*

  



End file.
